Just the Way the Season’s Going
Panthers fans had a good chuckle when division rival Tampa Bay traded up to take kicker Roberto Aguayo in the second round of this year’s draft.
That chuckle turned into laugh while Aguayo struggled mightily in the preseason and started his NFL career 3-of-7, including two misses Monday night.
So of course Aguayo would nail a 38-yard game-winner at the buzzer.
The Panthers’ Super Bowl hangover has turned into long, head-pounding, gut-wrenching headache.
Anderson to Olsen is Great Until It’s Not
Everyone in the building knew Anderson would lean on Olsen like he did in their other nine quarters together. Somehow, the Bucs continued to let Olsen get open and midway through the fourth, he had nine catches for 181 yards, tied for the 6th-most in Panthers’ history.
But you can’t fool the Bucs a 10th time ...
Anderson made his worst decision of the night at a highly inopportune time, forcing a pass to Olsen in double-coverage on first-and-goal from the 1. When CB Brent Grimes skied to grab the interception, the Panthers missed their best chance to break a 14-all tie.
A Merciful Break Ahead
Before the Week Seven bye, the Panthers will wrap up their opening stretch of 2016 in New Orleans on Sunday. It’ll be the second straight 1-3 opponent for the Panthers, but they’ll be on a short week playing a team coming off the bye.
Desperately need some good news?
Chances are good the Panthers will have QB Cam Newton and RB Jonathan Stewart back for that game in the building where the 2014 season suddenly turned.
Excuses are wearing thin – the Panthers are what their record is: a bad team. They might be the most talented bad team in the league, which is why this is so frustrating to watch, but a bad team they are nonetheless.
Agreed. I’m getting pretty tired of the sloppy mistakes. We took a huge gamble on bringing back Johnson and Ealy as our starting defensive ends. And its burning us… badly.
The last team that went 1-4 after appearing in the Super Bowl, Carolina in 2004.
For whatever reason, this season has been way more frustrating and disappointing than 2004.
I really like Ron Rivera, but I’m now firmly in the camp of “fire Mike Shula.” No excuse for pulling the Seattle coaching gaff of throwing the ball on 1st and Goal from the 1, then following it up with three straight runs up the gut for a 3-and-out. Based on how the defense is getting worn out this season due to the anemic offense, if I were Sean McDermott I might be looking to have a wall-to-wall couciling of sorts with Shula right about now (LOL)…
I like him too. However, I’m getting tired of hearing him complain about the schedule. Start worrying about things that will help this team. We have got to to figure out something as far as a pass rush goes. And they have got to stop making stupid mistakes, penalties/mental errors are absolutely killing us this year. I agree that play call was terrible. But DA should know to throw that away instead of forcing it into double coverage.
As bad as our offense has looked this year, its how bad our defense looks that is most surprising to me.
I think the biggest issue we have right now is there was a lack of competition. We failed to bring someone to compete for Remmers/Oher’s spot. We handed Tre Boston a starting position that he has lost 3 times now. Which forced Coleman into strong safety. CJ and Kony… We settled on a lot of positions, instead of trying to get better. Now we are 19 million under the cap and for what? Cam and Luke are not getting younger. Now is the time to win with them, yet all we are hearing is about the future, and while I respect not wanting to put us in finance hell again… we need to take shots now. Otherwise we are going to miss our opportunity.